Gene expression profiles in the hippocampus of the Rp58 hetero-KO and the control wild-type mice in adulthood and old age.

The early onset of microglia activation in the Rp58 hetero-KO mice raised the possibility that chronic inflammation in the brain was induced by mutation even in the early life stage. To test this possibility, we examined gene expression profiles in the hippocampus of the Rp58 hetero-KO and the control wild-type mice in adulthood and old age months. Among the genes whose expression level was down-regulated in the aged wild-type mice, 341 genes were down-regulated in the adulthood Rp58 hetero-KO mice when both were compared with the adulthood wild-type mice. Conversely, the expression levels of 103 genes were up-regulated both in the adulthood Rp58 hetero-KO and the aged wild-type mice. In the pathway enrichment analysis, these 103 up-regulated genes included Cxcl10, Oas2, Oas1a, and Oasl2, which are associated with a pathway of immune response interferon gamma action on extracellular matrix and cell differentiation. The experiment was performed using three independent total RNA samples from each group.